Surplus Auction Draws Big Crowd And Big Bucks

More money than expected was raised yesterday at Easton's auction of surplus goods, thanks to the large crowd.

It was "absolutely" the largest crowd ever, said Kevin Wallaesa, Easton's superintendent of highways, watching his fifth city auction.

Mayor Thomas Goldsmith looked pleased as he watched hundreds of bidders help raise almost $29,000 for the city's general fund. As the auction was barely an hour old, the mayor predicted, "We'll realize what we anticipated and then some."

Among the items auctioned at the maintenance and storage complex at 500 Bushkill Drive were about 90 bikes in all sorts of shapes, sizes, conditions and speeds, many of them being sold for less than $15.

"Bikes draw a crowd," Wallaesa said, "but the fire boxes in particular" accounted for the large turnout.

About 118 fire boxes that the city took off the streets a few years ago were auctioned. The first one was scooped up by Lou Ferrone of Forks Township, who paid $325 for a fire box mounted on a pedestal.

"It was near where I lived, around 6th and Ferry streets," said the former Easton resident, adding there was "sentimental value" attached to the item.

Goldsmith noted the city paid about $260 for the fire boxes in the 1950s. After Ferrone took the first one, the price on the boxes steadily dropped during the auction.

Eventually George Mershon of Yardley wound up getting 16 fire boxes without the pedestals for $35 each. He said he and two friends will sell them to raise money to buy firefighting antiques for their personal collections.

At one point, auctioneer William Boyle pulled the big ticket item -- a 1962 pumper fire truck in good condition -- out of the sale when a high bid of only $1,200 was offered. Boyle started out asking for $10,000.

He later said the truck was sold for $3,000 to "an unamed collector from out of town."

Boyle said the biggest surprise was the money raised selling traffic signals that the city nearly threw away.

Dale Klipple of Wind Gap was the first to buy a set of traffic lights, in fact, he paid $120 for one quad unit (a group of four traffic signals on one bracket), and later bought another quad set. He said he was going to put them on his lawn to line his macadam driveway.

Klipple's son-in-law, Glenn Altemose, who lives across the street, will be making a computer circuit to make the lights flash alternately. "It's going to work out pretty nice," he said.

Contractors found bargains in the heavy equipment being auctioned. Sikorsky Contractors of Lehighton got a road paver for $1,950.

A heavy-duty fork-lift truck went for $3,250; a police station wagon fetched the city $275, a police cruiser, $350; a 1977 4-by-4 truck with snowplow sold for $950, and a 1954 jeep, used for park patrols, cost its buyer $1,000.